Stock Gumshoe

I wrote last night about the energy crisis pick that was being teased as a beneficiary of the “Dallas Step Change Resolution,” and, if you’ll recall, I ran out of steam (and words) before getting to the second company that was teased in that ad.

The ad was for Mike Burnick’s Market Shock Trader, and it was all about two companies that will benefit from increased investment in alternative energy … the first one was a sugarcane ethanol play, I wrote (though couldn’t identify it exactly), and the second one is also a little paltry with the clues …

The teaser made over the top promises, of course — including this: “Buy in today, and you could bank your first 100% gains
before the first day of A Very Hot Summer…”

Summer is about a month away … so are we really going to get 100% gains in a month? One hopes that this gets the skepticism flowing in any reader’s mind, but you never know. Read the rest of this entry »

Many of you have been interested in the MEGA-U308 teaser that’s been circulating from GRESSOR and Taipan recently. I’ve had several readers send in the suggested solution to this one, but I wasn’t ever able to confirm with as much certainty as I would like … thanks to the forum, though, readers like you can submit your own solutions, too.

And one just did so — he picked the same solution as the majority of readers who sent in emails on this, and though several readers have pointed out that a few of the details in the teaser aren’t accurate, the breadth of suggestions tells me that even though I haven’t confirmed it personally, they’re all most likely correct. I am certainly not an expert on the uranium market, so I’ll step back and let those of you who are run with this one and let us know if you think it’s worth the money.

Here’s the pick if you want to check it out and/or argue with it. FYI, aside from this reader about a half dozen others have suggested this solution via email, none of whom wanted to be mentioned by name. A couple alternative suggestions for this one were sent in, too, but without much conviction or detail. Sorry that I was too stubborn to post those picks without confirming it for myself, though you might also thank me: It’s down 10-20% or so from when I first started seeing this email.

I may as well have called this post, “another frickin’ uranium teaser” — it’s getting a little ridiculous right now.

I think we can probably count all the investment newsletters that aren’t trying to jump on the uranium bandwagon on one hand.

But hey, there’s no denying that uranium is in a bull market (though how long it might last, or where we are in the bull, are certainly open questions) … so let’s look at another one.

This one, along with a suggestion as to its solution, was forwarded by an anonymous reader. He got it from Elliott Gue, who runs a newsletter called Energy Strategist.

And right now … for a limited time, of course … he’s “convinced his publisher” to offer a sale on the subscription, so you can get it for just a hair under $600 a year.

And what are his bona fides? He says he recommended Cameco a while back … and if you needed a newsletter to advise you that Cameco was a good stock to own if uranium prices were likely to climb, perhaps he would have been a good person to pay. Apparently, his newsletter cost $1700 a year before this price break, though, food for thought. The point being, Cameco is not exactly a hidden gem or a secret discovery like many of the newsletter advisors claim.

Anyway, so what’s the hot stock (or the one he gives clues about, at least) that this dude wants you to buy right now?

He only gives one real clue, but it’s a doozy:

“I recently found another small uranium mining company for my subscribers–Cameco bought a 20% stake in it. The best is yet to come as we get set to ride this mega-winner all the way in 2007!”

So what is it? Well, according to my reader … and I’ve checked the facts, so I’m pretty sure he’s right, this company is …

Unor, Inc. (UNOFF.PK, UNI.V if you trade with our friends in the frozen North.)

Don’t know a lot about this little guy, it’s a fifty cent company. They have an exploration program in Nunavut, and a joint venture with Cameco, and recently closed a secondary offering that gave Cameco that 20% (well, 19.5% … I guess it’s OK to round).

They actually have a more complicated history with Cameco, too, since it sounds like many of Unor’s properties are optioned from Cameco … so that may be worth looking in to. They might even end up finding some diamonds (literally) in the rough as part of their Canadian exploration, so that could be exciting — but there are a lot of Canadian diamond miners these days, many of whom I’m sure have more promising kimberlites under the bit than Unor if that’s what you want. If you want to go back a bit, they changed their name last year from Hornby Bay Exploration, so you may see some stuff under that name.

To tell you the truth, I’m so overwhelmed with the number of these uranium companies that I have no idea which ones have any downside protection if the market for the metal tails off — I’ll keep poking around in the other teasers for uranium companies, too, but I’ve got to say I find it hard to believe that all of these juniors are going to grow up and make money … too many of them seem, on the surface, to be just scooping up the rights to old mining areas from the last uranium bull market 50 years ago and hoping that they’ll make money just by getting in “early.” Someone will probably get rich on this, but I’m guessing it won’t be me — if there’s more uranium wisdom among the great collective intelligence of Stock Gumshoe readers, and I’m sure there is, please share!